missing what is gone
Maybe it is just that I lived for so many years with Tom, but I’m finding being on my own (so to speak) to be unfamiliar and even scary territory. I had a bout of pretty bad vertigo awhile back and there’s nothing like being incapacitated to make you realize just how vulnerable you are. For the first time in years I was on my own. There was no Tom to help me or even to offer sympathy and hold my hand. I can only imagine how frightening this would be if I were older and physically frail. As it is, I think, ” who will I call if someone weird is following me around in the grocery store and I’m afraid to go out to my car?” ( this happened once and Tom drove over and picked me up!) For that matter, there’s no one to nudge awake at night if I have a nightmare or I think someone’s in the house. I don’t have a real confidant anymore – there are things I would only share with him and now they just rattle around in my brain with no place to go. I used to think lonely meant I didn’t have someone to do things with, or someone to talk with. But I have those things and there is still this profound loneliness when I come up against places in my life where I’m reminded again of this missing relationship. I’m simultaneously so grateful to have had such a thing and also so disappointed that it’s gone.
Another thing that I’m realizing is how my life was enriched just by living with Tom. He shared things with me that I never even thought about until he brought them to my attention. He loved musicals and we went to a number of performances over the course of our marriage. It was a whole part of life I didn’t really know much about before. Tom took me camping and driving all over southern Utah. We had amazing adventures that I would never have thought to do on my own. Tom introduced me to the cello (he played in high school) and shared that love with Spencer – something I don’t know I would have thought to suggest to my child when he was considering learning a musical instrument. He shared his love of Rush (along with his extensive collection of albums) and now every time one of their songs comes on the radio I feel like it is a little wave from Tom, reminding me that he is still watching out for us. Left to my own devices I’m pretty happy to just read a good book and stay home where I’m comfortable. How lucky I was to marry someone who took me places (metaphorically speaking) that I wouldn’t have gone on my own.
I’m trying to look at the future as an opportunity to stretch myself – find some new passions, try some new things, look for opportunities to do things I couldn’t before. But honestly this is still pretty hard to do. Many days I get to eight o’clock and think, “I got through another day – yay me!” and about the only things I did were the essentials. I’m trying to be hopeful – that one day here I’m going to feel excited about something and it will be good. But right now the part that mourns what I’ve lost is still a lot bigger than than the part that hopes.
Grief sucks. That’s all their is to it. Praying you find peace and comfort and healing that passes all understanding. Hugging you from afar sweet friend.